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And... yeah. At the very least, I think your analysis is better than the author's seemingly-serious take. It very much seems like they're taking the Descent Into Madness as something positive in the book.

...If I could actually stomach reading this in-depth, I might try my hand at writing a fixfic.

The main page of a site is sometimes referred to as the landing page. Also, this appeals to the Pern fan in me. ^_^

The Head Clerk/Cleric wouldn't be in charge of the wizards. Just other clerks. Basically, you'd have the theoretical authority to delegate the tedious jobs I've delegated to you. Doesn't mean you'd have to use it, though.

Up to you, of course. {= )

~Neshomeh

Awesome job on the costumes and the playing of the characters. Those pics are a ton of fun. I think my favorite is the one where you're both looking around the wall.

~Neshomeh

Can't say I've ever heard of a schizophrenic whose head-voices told them nice things.

And, having just taken a brief poke around Google to see if I could quickly turn up anything to refute that perception, here is an article by an actual schizophrenic that also turns the idea of Salt on its head. Not sure if that supports or dismantles my take on the book, but I'm not suggesting that it's serious interpretation of the text anyway. {= )

~Neshomeh

But the odd thing about Salt is that (and I did skim this, so I may have missed something) to my recollection, the descriptions are equally muted and unreal there. And I guess that's the point, in your parse.

But if that was the mark the author was trying to hit, it would make far more sense to portray the scenario very differently. The ocean scenes would be comforting and muted, and Salt would be a more painful delusion than it was. As it stands... everything feels dull, and the ocean portions are tinged with Body Horror. With no contrast save that, it's hard to see why Lyle would ever prefer the ocean to Salt.

Or would be, if the white world Lyle starts from made any more sense than the blue world he envisions in his death throes.

The trouble is, the author doesn't understand people at all. When all our base needs are met, when we're secure and healthy, we don't lose all motivation and cease to do anything. We create. Heck, some people create even when they can't afford to feed themselves, because they can't help it. Creating and engaging each other in games, and dance, and song, and stories, and all arts and crafts, is a base human drive. You can't just ignore it.

I mean, sure, some folks will lose themselves in front of the TV or the computer, but that's the exception, not the rule. Most of us here on the ol' Interwebz are using the medium for... you guessed it... creation. Sharing ideas. Communication and engagement.

It's not all positive, of course, but for the purposes of dismantling the logic behind the State of Salt, it doesn't matter. If every person on the planet had Internet access directly implanted in our brains, it wouldn't change the fundamental drive of humans to use their minds to DO stuff. Even dumb stuff. Even horrible stuff.

Brave New World did the socialist-hedonist dystopia better.

Though, granted, it sounds like the dystopia in this book is just an excuse for weird tentacle-monster sex later. Point is, I utterly fail to care. The starting scenario makes no sense, and our protagonist cannot be sympathetic, because the situation he's raging against is unclear and baffles more than it horrifies. His escape from it has no power to move me.

I could almost get into it as a fascinating trip through the wild fancies of a deranged mind, though. Maybe he's a paranoid schizophrenic or something, the State of Salt is white because that's the color of clinic coats and padded walls, and that's the world he sees when he's taking his meds, and he's one of those people who convinces himself that he's not his "real self" when medicated and chooses the familiar delusion over facing up to stark, frightening reality with its confusing rules and expectations. I dunno. It makes more sense than taking the book at its word.

~Neshomeh

I also dropped an "and", and several times forgot to replace asterisks with the HTML for italics, because I forgot that the PPC board doesn't run on Markdown like Discord and several other sites do.

Already said my piece on it in the Lounge, but I'll say it again over here.

Over in the *Terraria* fandom (which luckily doesn't seem as prolific as some others, but that's no reason to let it go unprotected), I found this shining example of a badfic.

The fic in question is unfinished- only the first chapter exists, the writer having abandoned it back in 2012- but it already seems to be something that the Department of Technical Errors would have a field day with. The fic ignores the fact that paragraph breaks exist, generates a Mini with the title *alone*, cuts the benefit a player would get from a Life Crystal in half (you get 20 max HP from using one, not 10) while simultaneously misnaming it a "crystal heart" (which brings to mind a certain artifact from the My Little Pony continuum), forgets that the player character is supposed to start with a copper shortsword as well as the copper axe and copper pick.

On top of that, the fic also severely warps the character of the Guide, transforming him from a helpful, no-nonsense walking tutorial that helpfully directs you to sacrifice him in the name of progress once you near the end of pre-Hardmode, into a coward that goes flamethrower-crazy and then breaks down into a sniveling heap when called useless, and actually fears for his life just long enough to guilt-trip the Sue!Player into building a house for him to hide in... which he promptly abandons in favor of becoming a pseudo-player character, and tagging along with the Sue!Player while they go mining. (And even then, if the player character knew how to play Terraria, he shouldn't have needed guilt-tripping in order to want to build a house for the Guide, as well as several other houses for the various other NPCs in the game, most of which act as merchants.)

So, yeah, we're dealing with a Sue!Player *and* a possibly-character-replaced Guide.

Relatively harmless, but still nuts. Better than the other way around, I suppose...

Who doesn't want to assassinate the "secret twin" of Harry Potter while looking exactly like the man himself?

Although I'm not sure it's very wise to disguise yourselves as canon characters...

(In all seriousness, looking great!)

You put a lot of thought into this. G'job!

-Twistey

Fictional monarchies are nothing like the monarchy we had when we declared independence. Aragorn, Queen Amidala, and all those other such monarchs are just rulers. They let their people have a voice. King George III didn't let the colonies have any voice whatsoever, and basically treated them like a toy for him to play with. Case closed.

-Twistey

But we’re in a medieval setting, and thus the old tradition of actually journeying journeymen would require to leave Master Neshomeh and find work with some other master archivists. And since these tales reflect real life and Master Huinesoron just turned down Thoth’s offer...

HG

...it could've had potential to be good if it weren't basically a stupid "you-violated-me-now-I-love-you" fic with Fanthulhu beings. The water theme could've been good, and so could the plot. In fact, I could totally imagine the good version of this, based on changes one could make to the plot described in the summary.

-Twistey

(Note: I probably should've been saying "ripoff" instead of "bootleg")

1. I think I get what you mean about not harming the canon, but what does that say about being able to recruit clones? The clone may technically be its own universe, yes, but because of copyright, it technically also shouldn't exist. Technically, the "canons" are still "canons", but canons from good universes have been recruited in rare cases, and the fact that the original universe is a copy and is also hopefully doomed to be destroyed by the creators of the ripoff-ee makes recruiting seem a lot more justifiable.

2. I get what you mean about rom-hacks, but it feels really uncomfortable that you're grouping awesome rom-hacks and mods together with terrible ripoffs like "Cup Haed Adventure." In particular, you seem to have severely downplayed the motives of all such games. The game is not trying to "become part of" the source material; that, from my perspective, would mean it's legitimately trying to add to the canon, which includes both good and bad rom-hacks. What the "developers" of said games, and thus the games, are trying to do is make a quick buck by pretending to be the canon universe so they can take advantage of both the canon universe's perceived popularity and the multitude of gullible children and their equally gullible parents who download freely on the App Store and Android Market. It's just money. Nothing but money.

However, if I were to use something similar to how you describe the motives of other games, I could say it was trying to pretend to be part of the source material. Not become part of, not copy, but pretend to be part of.

How do I know that the game shares the "developer's" motive? Well, most of these ripoff games are filled to the brim with ads. Sometimes the "developers" use even shadier techniques to get your money, such as asking you to let the game have access to your personal info (IE: CREDIT CARD INFO. Now is your mind changed?) If the game itself doesn't also want to make money, why does it have these things in it?

TL;DR: I guess I do see your point, but it just doesn't feel right to be treating unholy ripoffs and legitimate original universes the same way because of little technicalities. As I said, the name of the game for the "developers" is making a quick buck from people's lack of ability to discern what's official or a genuine fangame and what's not, so from my perspective, they don't fit into the categories that you gave. As for recruiting, I don't see why any of this prevents the "canons" of a ripoff game from being recruited. Heck, they might even flock to the PPC, assuming that they know they could be made to cease to exist at any time. Or something.

-Twistey

Also, they'd want to avoid the salt caverns...

Fire might be the best method in this hypothetical mission.

Lots and lots of fire.

Combat/Command Information Centre, aka 'what Battlestar calls their bridge'.

The 'command' variant would work better; only issue is that it really is intended for a combat situation.

'Operations' is also viable, or just 'Command'. That's valid use in English, where people protest outside Parliament for example.

hS

We writers have a tendency to concern non-writers that way. Your present is, thus, a Writer To Civilian Translation Dictionary. May your conversations with non-writers be less concerning with this helpful book.

-Twistey ;)

This makes sense for when the tentacle monster uses his god essence/DEADLY ACID to burn holes in both the back of his throat and his skull. The book tries to romanticize that, by the way.

But... for the injection? Pleasurable and/or addictive bodily fluids is a downright traditional trope for this sorr of story, at least in badfic. It's an odd omission, as are several others.

If this were a fanfic and it got missioned, the agents would find themselves in a muted landscape, devoid of all color. Everything would feel numb. Because that's how this story feels: numb. Detached. Unreal.